News

16 February 2007

 

Skyworks sampling WCDMA Intera FEMs with support for bands I, II, IV, V and VI

At the 3GSM World Congress 2007 in Barcelona, Spain , Skyworks Solutions Inc of Woburn, MA, USA launched new WCDMA versions of its Intera family of front-end modules (FEM) that support bands I, II, IV, V and VI.

Skyworks' existing Intera FEMs support four of the five tier-one handset OEMs, and are at the heart of over 200 million handsets, following their debut three and a half years ago. But, according to Deutsche Bank, WCDMA handsets are expected to grow from 45 million handsets in 2005 to 445 million units in 2009. “As the industry continues to migrate to multimode, Skyworks offers customers a highly differentiated, comprehensive and quality product portfolio supporting all of the major frequency bands,” says executive VP Greg Waters.

The new WCDMA FEMs simplify RF design, reduce critical board space through higher levels of integration, extend battery life, and facilitate implementation within virtually any baseband architecture, claims Skyworks.

Skyworks' patent-pending bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filter (which it has already sampled to multimode handset customers) is also leveraged in personal communications system (PCS) bands I, II and IV, creating a complete RF solution for handsets when combined with the firm’s switches, power amplifiers, front-end modules and transceivers. Given their combination of small footprint, low profile and high performance, BAW filters are valuable in enabling next-generation wireless products that increasingly require greater multimedia functionality and reduced form factors, the firm says.

Leveraging patented load-insensitive power amplifier (LIPA) technology, the WCDMA FEMs, with fully integrated filters, address requirements for 3G multimode, multimedia applications, where size, performance and cost are critical. They support high-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA), high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), have a small and efficient 4mm x 7mm package that incorporates a built-in power coupler and detector, and reduce overall bill-of-materials (BOM). More specifically:

• the SKY77433 for Band I is a fully matched 16-pin, full-duplex FEM for UMTS in Europe and Asia (IMT 2000);
• the SKY77434 for Band II is an FEM for US PCS applications;
• the SKY77435 for Band IV is an FEM for advanced wideband systems (AWS, otherwise known as the FCC Auctioned Spectrum);
• the SKY77436 for Band V is an FEM for the US cellular market, while Band VI is developed for Japan.

The new WCDMA FEMs are now available for sampling.

Visit: http://www.skyworksinc.com